Table Of ContentPhonics
Instant
Practice
Reproducible Games, Puzzles, and Mini-Books That Target
the Key Phonics Skills Beginning Readers Need to Master
Linda Ward Beech
Instant Phonics Practice © 1999, 2009 Linda Ward Beech, Scholastic Teaching Resources
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Scholastic Inc. grants teachers permission to photocopy the practice pages from this book for classroom use. No other
part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of
the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Previously published as Fun Phonics Cut & Paste, Fun Phonics Mini-Books, and Fun Phonics Puzzles & Games;
portions revised and updated.
Cover design by Maria Lilja
Interior design by Solas
Cover and interior illustrations by Maxie Chambliss, Rusty Fletcher, and James Graham Hale.
ISBN-13: 978-0-545-13039-4
ISBN-10: 0-545-13039-5
Copyright © 1999, 2009 by Linda Ward Beech
All rights reserved.
Published by Scholastic Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 40 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
Instant Phonics Practice © 1999, 2009 Linda Ward Beech, Scholastic Teaching Resources
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About This Book Initial and Final Consonants
Meeting the Standards—Supporting RTI .......5 Two Clues .............................55
Management Tips .........................6 Down the Word Steps ....................56
Extending Learning .......................6 Turn It Around ..........................57
Teaching Notes ...........................7 Word Links ............................58
Word Chain ............................59
Alphabet Nut Hunt ..............................60
Match-a-Letter Game .....................22 Two-Way Words .........................61
Give a Dog a Bone! .......................24 Consonant Word Train Mini-Book ...........62
ABC Picture Puzzle .......................25
Hidden Letter Surprise ....................26 Consonant Blends
ABC Animals ...........................27 Color-the-Blends Puzzle ...................64
ABC Mobile ............................28 New Words ............................65
Line Up for Lunch .......................29 Who Am I? .............................66
Honey Hunt ...........................30 Picture Words ...........................67
Mr. A–Z’s ABCs Mini-Book .................31 On the Chart ...........................68
Picture Perfect ..........................69
Initial Consonants Slide the Letters .........................70
Picture Show ...........................33 -Blend Wheel Mini-Book ................71
On the Farm ...........................34
School Tools ............................35 Short Vowels
Build a House ...........................36 Short Vowel Crosswords ...................75
Food Puzzles ...........................37 Short Vowel Banners .....................76
Picture Books ...........................38 Short Vowel Tic-Tac-Toe ...................77
Sounds of C ............................39 Short Vowel Animals .....................78
Same Sounds ...........................40 Bunny Hop .............................79
Tale of Tails Mini-Book ....................41 Letter Windows .........................80
Who Did It? ............................81
Final Consonants At the Shop ............................82
Final Consonant Game ....................44 Toss and Tell ...........................83
Around the Park .........................45 Sentence Fun ...........................84
Have a Heart ...........................46 That Cat ...............................85
Hop or Run ............................47 What’s in the Truck? Mini-Book .............86
Turn and Learn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
What Do You See? .......................49
Final-Consonant Puzzle Fun ...............50
Animal Wishes Mini-Book .................51
Instant Phonics Practice © 1999, 2009 Linda Ward Beech, Scholastic Teaching Resources
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Long Vowels Rhymes and Word Families
Make Snakes ...........................90 Rhymes and Shapes .....................117
Animal Crossword .......................91 Word Family Flowers ....................118
On the Tree ............................92 Rhyme Roll Game ......................119
Picture Maze. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Words on a Web ........................120
Long-i Cut and Paste .....................94 Fat Cat Game ..........................121
Grid Game .............................95 Rhyme Flip-Ups ........................122
Ghost Questions .........................96 Rhyme Find ...........................123
U Stew ................................97 Rhyme Hunt ...........................124
Whale Tale .............................98 Silly Sock Rhymes ......................125
Changes ...............................99 Make It Rhyme .........................126
Riddle Fun ............................100 Rhyme Time Mini-Book ..................127
Colors Around the Year Mini-Book .........101
Short and Long Vowels
Wrong One Game ......................103
Train Ride .............................104
What’s Missing? ........................105
Short and Long ........................106
Name the Vowels .......................107
Vowel Tic-Tac-Toe ......................108
Road Race Game .......................109
Vowel Opposites ........................110
Number Match-Up ......................111
Color Clues ...........................112
Going to Work Mini-Book ................113
Instant Phonics Practice © 1999, 2009 Linda Ward Beech, Scholastic Teaching Resources
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About This Book
As children expand their literacy horizons to become readers, they need many
different skills and strategies to achieve success. Among the instructional
approaches that can help children unlock the mysteries of print is phonics
instruction. This book includes games, puzzles, hands-on activities, and
mini-books that offer practice in recognizing some of the basic sound-letter
relationships children need in decoding, reading comprehension, writing, and
spelling. The book is designed to engage children with hands-on activities that
are lively and fun to do.
Meeting the Standards—Supporting RTI
The activities in this book also help meet key state and national language arts
standards (see below), and can used to support the Response to Intervention (RTI)
efforts in your school. RTI, a federal initiative, is a three-tier intervention approach
in which educators provide early screening and specific, targeted intervention,
particularly in reading, for students at risk. Conceived as a prevention model,
the goal of RTI is to achieve success for all students. This book provides many
activities for you to choose from so that you can support the varied instructional
needs of your students.
Connections to the Language Arts Standards
The activities in this book support the following language arts standards
for students in grades K–2, as outlined by Mid-continent Research for
Education and Learning (McRel). McRel is a nationally recognized,
nonprofit organization that collects and synthesizes national and state
PreK–12 curriculum standards and proposes what teachers should
provide for their students to grow proficient in language arts, among
other curriculum areas.
Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process including:
v Knows uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet
v Uses mental images based on pictures and print to aid in
comprehension of text
v Uses basic elements of phonetic analysis (for example, common letter/
sound relationships, beginning and ending consonants, vowel sounds,
blends, word patterns) to decode unknown words.
v Uses basic elements of structural analysis such as spelling patterns to
decode unknown words
Source: Kendall, J. S., & Marzano, R. J. (2004). Content knowledge: A compendium of standards and
benchmarks for K–12 education. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.
Online database: http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks/
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Management Tips
v To complete various activities, children will need scissors, pencils, glue sticks,
crayons or colored pencils, staplers, and brass fasteners.
v While some children will be able to do these activities independently, others
may require more help getting started. Whether you introduce the pages to
individual children, small groups, or the whole class, read the instructions
aloud in advance. It’s also helpful to model how to complete each activity.
v Assist children in cutting out patterns, as needed, or do this in advance.
v Children can play many of the games independently. Others are more fun
or work better with a partner. You may wish to pair children for different
purposes.
v You’ll find tips for specific activities, as well as the answers for each page, in the
Teaching Notes that begin on page 7.
Extending Learning
v Build on what children have learned by extending an activity. For example:
• After completing Turn and Learn (page 48) or Make Snakes (page 90), have
children use each word in a sentence. To extend At the Shop (page 82),
challenge children to think of other items to add to each shop window.
• Invite children to create new activity pages based on ones in the book. They
might draw and cut out new food puzzles beginning with specified letters
as they did in Food Puzzles (page 37), or create new crossword puzzles for
classmates to solve once they have completed Short Vowel Crosswords
(page 75).
• Use Words on a Web (page 120) as a springboard for helping children make
webs for other word families, as well as consonants, blends, and vowel sounds.
• Make an interactive bulletin-board center based on On the Tree (page 92).
Create a multi-branched tree from brown construction paper and affix to the
board at children’s eye level. Choose the phonics skill you would like children
to practice and gather pictures of words (from this book or old workbooks)
whose names contain the target skill. Then prepare simple leaf cutouts, paste
the pictures to the leaves, and place in a basket near the board. Post simple
directions and invite children to visit the center in pairs or small groups and
work together to tack the correct leaves to the tree.
v Relate the activities and mini-books to other curriculum areas. For example,
you might use Tale of Tails (page 41) in a science unit on animals, while What’s
in the Truck? (page 86) lends itself to a unit on transportation.
v Each skill area includes a mini-book. Encourage children to take their mini-
books home to share with their families. Place an extra copy in your classroom
library. And for activity pages children are particularly proud of, you might
compile send-home booklets.
v Work with children to create word cards from the pages they complete. Use
them for word walls or place in a pocket chart so that children can look at them
often as they familiarize themselves with sound-letter relationships.
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Teaching Notes
On the following pages, you’ll find teaching tips for completing selected pages, as
well as the answers for each page.
Alphabet
page 22
Match-a-Letter Game
For this game, each pair of children will need a penny, two game markers
(different-colored beans or buttons work well), and one set of uppercase letter
cards (page 23).
page 24
Give a Dog a Bone!
Give a Dog a Bone!
Answers: See thumbnail of completed page at right.
ABC DEF GHI
abc def ghi
page 2
ABC Picture Puzzle
MNO PQR
jkl JKL mno p r
Answer: Children should connect the dots to find a clown
page 2 STU VWX
stu vwx yz YZ
Hidden Letter Surprise
Answer: Children should end up with the letter V.
page 2
ABC Animals
Answers: camel, dog, elephant, fish, horse, lion, octopus, pig, snake, turkey,
whale, zebra
page 28
ABC Mobile
For added durability, copy the reproducible page onto cardstock, or have children
use a glue stick to affix it to an old file folder before they begin cutting. Children
may need help in cutting out the spiral and attaching the illustrations using tape
and thin string. To hang the finished mobiles, tape a piece of string to the top of
the spiral.
Answers: There are illustrations for the following 12 letters only: B–ball; G–goat;
I–igloo; J–jump rope; K–kite; M–mouse; N–nest; Q–queen; R–rake; U–umbrella;
V–violin; Y–yo-yo Honey Hunt
page 29
Line Up for Lunch
Answers: Ava, Ben, Guy, Ina, Jin, Mai, Ned, Quinn, Raj, Uma, Vin, Yui
page 30
Honey Hunt
Answers: car, game, house, mitten, pen, saw, watch
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page 31
Mr. A–Z’s ABCs Mini-Book
Making the Mini-Books: Make a class set of the mini-book pages (pages 31–32).
(You might also make an enlarged version of the book to use as a model when
introducing the books to children.) Show children how to assemble their books:
1. Fold page 31 along the solid line so that the text faces out. Then fold page 32
along the solid line so that the text faces in.
2. Cut the pages apart along the dotted lines.
3. Slip pages 1 and 6 inside the cover and page 7. Then open up so that page 1 is
on the left and slip in pages 2 and 5. Pages 3 and 4 go in the middle.
4. Check that the pages are in the correct order, then open to pages 3 and 4 and
Tip staple them together along the inner, center fold.
Have children use a glue stick to
5. Invite children to color their mini-books.
paste the backs of the numbered
pages together so that there are
Using the Mini-Books:
no blank pages in between.
1. Review the letters of the alphabet with children. Have volunteers take turns
pointing to various letters on a chart and identifying them.
2. Read a copy of the mini-book aloud to the class or a small group. Display the
illustrations as well.
3. Talk about the story. Do children understand the significance of Mr. A–Z’s
name? Ask: “Why does Mr. A–Z have all the letters. Where does he keep them?
Would you keep letters in these places? Why or why not?”
4. Have children read their mini-books with you. Point out that the text of the
story is in speech balloons. Ask, “Who is talking in this story? Whom are they
talking to?” Have children identify the letters that Mr. A–Z finds on each page.
5. Ask children what they notice about the words in the story (They rhyme.) Invite
volunteers to identify the words that rhyme
Initial Consonants
page 33
Picture Show
Answers: B–bear K–kangaroo M–monkey T–turtle P–penguin S–seal
page 34
On the Farm
Answers: farmer, fox, fence; gate, goat, girl; jeep, jacket, jump rope
page 3
School Tools
Answers: 1. p–pencil 2. f–file folder 3. b–backpack 4. l–lunch 5. t–tape
6. c–computer 7. r–ruler 8. s–scissors
page 3
Build a House
Answers: D–door; F–fence; G–garage; M–mailbox; R–roof; W–window
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